Wow. What times we are living in right now!

I think it’s safe to say that riding a fairly perpetual emotional rollercoaster has become the new normal for a lot of women. Are you on the roller coaster, too?

As you’ve heard me say before, it’s good and important to feel your feelings – the good, the bad, the brilliant and the ugly, too.

It’s okay to fall apart, need to sleep a lot, binge watch Netflix, have a good cry, rage over what we’re seeing in the news, and feel helpless about it all.

And, it’s not healthy to live there.

Your dreams are calling.
Your purpose is waiting.
Your ambition wants to be fed.
Your creativity needs an expression.

And, you are needed.

You – a woman who is dedicated to her own awakening, her own evolution, her own healing, her own uprising – are needed.

So, let your emotions show you what needs to be addressed. Let them show you what needs to be moved to the top of your list of things to face and take action on. Let your emotions guide you to a place of wanting to DO something about them.

Then go and do what you need to do to feel better now.

Because when you feel better, you take yourself to a place where you CAN and WANT to do something about what’s not working – in your life, and in the world today.

Here are 6 ways feel better right away:

1. Clean up your diet – What we eat has a radical effect on the chemistry and physiology of our bodies. If you’re living off of cookies and red wine right now, there’s a good chance this is contributing – in a very big way – to you not feeling so good.

You likely know that what you’re eating isn’t the best, so agree with that part of yourself that knows. Agree with the part of you that wants better for you. Then stop the cycle of unhealthy food choices by replacing what you’ve been eating with healthier choices. Get lots of healthy greens into your diet – salads, smoothies, fresh juices – too.

If you get the urge or compulsion (because sometimes it’s strong!) to go back to your former diet of cookies and red wine (or whatever your equivalent is), remind yourself of how it made you feel. Then remind yourself of how you really want to feel instead.

If the compulsion to go back is super strong, reach out to a reliable friend, look inward and ask what it is, right now, that you don’t want to feel, and what you really need right now to feel good. Cookies and red wine are substitutes for a deeper need.

Get curious. What is that deeper need? How can you better meet that need?

2. Move your body – Where there is lack of movement, pathology can settle in. This is true for a puddle or river. It’s also true for our bodies. Movement brings energy and a flow of blood and healthy nutrients to the body. It can elevate a mood, erase brain fog, elicit spontaneous laughter and call forth those feel good body chemicals to flood our system.

Moving the body is healing on so many levels!

Maybe stretching feels good to you today. Maybe it’s a brisk 8-minute walk between client calls or Zoom meetings. Maybe it’s hopping on your bike so you can feel free. Or maybe it’s hiking on an 8-mile trail in nature to give yourself a deep and true reset.

You won’t regret having moved your body in some way, but you might regret skipping that walk, avoiding that virtual Pilates class, or ditching that sunny morning walk because it’s raining outside now. Movement can be a near-instantaneous mood lifter. Try it today and see.

3. Change the energy & mood – Shifting the energy and mood of a room or your home can change how you feel in far reaching ways. There are many ways to do this – some that require nothing more than a push or two of a button. Others are more of a task or project but can be wonderful ways to elevate how you’re feeling right now.

Music is a great way to shift the energy and mood of a room – for better or worse. Get clear on how you want to feel, then scan your inner library of songs for the perfect “feel better” tune. I love to make playlists for this very thing.

Doing some energetic clearing of a room or home is another way to help shift how you are feeling. Again, there are many ways to do this – through sound, through incense, essential oils or smudge, and more.

Sometimes a space just needs to be cleared of clutter, counters and floors wiped and swept, beds made, laundry started, dishes put away and pillows arranged and fluffed. Even just 10 minutes of tidying up can be incredibly mood altering.

Moving furniture around, changing the artwork on your walls, removing things that are broken, stained, or hold memories of not-so-great things – all of these can really shift a space and your mood.

As will simple things like getting dressed in something other than your pajamas or yoga wear, putting on a little mascara or a full face of makeup, doing something fun and flirty with your hair. Sometimes we have to shift how we are showing up to help shift our mood.

What’s one thing you can do right now to shift the energy of yourself or your space to feel better now?

4. Be reminded – Recently I was told by someone that I’m a bad mom, bad communicator, bad friend, bad decision maker… that I’m just a bad person. I’m happy to say that the majority of what was said didn’t “go in”. I knew it was false and rejected it as such on the spot.

But honestly, some things did get in a little bit, and I left that interaction feeling the effects of it. I was sort of dazed, not really in my body, and I knew I needed support. I went to reach out to a friend.

In the process of reaching for my phone I paused and asked myself, “What is it that I really need right now?” And what I really needed was to be reminded – that I AM a good person, I AM a good communicator, I AM a good decision maker, I AM a good mom.

Sometimes we just need to be reminded of who we really are.

We need reflections of how amazing, thoughtful, authentic, wonderfully wacky, devoted, eccentric, genuine and loving we are. We need to be reminded that our value as women isn’t tied to how perfect we are doing things, or how many followers on Instagram we have, or what our current pant size is, or how clean our house is right now, or how many hours we worked last week.

Sometimes we just need to be reminded that we’re a really good person who is doing her best and always eager to learn and do better. Sometimes we just need to be reminded that we’re seen, appreciated and loved.

So, reach out to a reliable and trustworthy friend. Ask for what you need to hear and know about yourself to feel better right now. Ask them to repeat it as many times as you need to hear it. Breathe it in until it lands inside of you and feels like it’s true. Then notice how much better you feel.

5. Do something kind – I think we all have moments when we’re overly focused on what’s wrong with ourselves, or what’s not going well in our lives. We can even fall into spending a lot of time beating ourselves up over things from our past.

While I do think it’s important to look at the things that aren’t working in our lives and to do something about those things, I also know that it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that our happiness is dependent on focusing on and fixing ourselves.

But the acts of kindness we do for others increases our sense of value, purpose and heart, especially when it lifts someone’s day. We often far undervalue what our acts and words can mean to someone else.

Doing something kind puts good out into the world. It elevates our own self-esteem. It takes us out of focusing on what is wrong with ourselves and our lives. And it elevates a mood in just a matter of moments.

Who are you inspired to lavish with a little kindness? Who needs it right now? Who supports, loves and makes you feel so good? What’s one small act of kindness you can do right now?

6. Do a do-over – At almost 5 years of age, I’m doing do-overs a lot with my son right now. He might storm and shout about something. We do a do-over so he can practice saying and doing it in a different, gentler way. He might be building something and then in an instant, it falls apart. We do a do-over and rebuild it, stronger and better than before.

We can do this, too.

There are plenty of things we can’t change – choices we made in the past, things we regret not taking advantage of, things we wish we’d said or did differently. None of it is wrong or bad or evidence that we’re horribly flawed and untrustworthy.

Life isn’t about doing things perfectly. Life is about experience – and learning, growing and evolving from the experiences that we have.

If there’s something that you wish you could do-over, why not do it over? If you wake up and just feel “off” for half the day, why not take a nap and wake fresh to start anew? If you overreact to something at work or with your kids, and wish you could respond differently, do it over. Apologize. Say you want to do better. Then do better.

You’ll get the opportunity to experience things in a new, better feeling way, and everyone around you will appreciate the example you are setting.

You can ask for forgiveness. You can push restart. You can do it again, stronger and wiser than before. You can do better. And doing better always feels better.

Feeling better is just a small step, a small shift, a single decision away. It’s more in our control than we sometimes think.

If you’d like more tips and tools like this to help you create and live the most amazing, fulfilling life – the one you dream about living but maybe feel so far from?

Come join my free private online community here.